Prosecutors tried to keep Kirkland jailed
By Kimball Perry • kperry@enquirer.com • March 11, 2009

Had Ohio Parole Board members heeded a request from the office Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters 12 years ago, Anthony Kirkland would still be behind bars and Esme Kenney would be alive.

In a Jan. 30, 1997, letter to the Parole Board, assistant prosecutor Jennifer E. Day asked that Kirkland be imprisoned “until he has served every day of his maximum sentence” following his guilty plea in a killing.

Kirkland was 18 when he was sentenced to 7-25 years following his 1987 conviction for the strangulation killing of Leola Douglas, whose body Kirkland then set on fire – allegations very similar to those made in Kenney’s killing.

The letter reveals that Kirkland not only set the woman on fire using lighter fluid, he also spread gasoline around the house and set the house on fire before he fled. A relative was trapped in the fire but was rescued by firefighters. Kirkland had been living there with relatives.

Kirkland served 16 years in prison for that conviction. He was not released on parole in 1997, but was released in 2003.

Had he served his entire sentence, Kirkland would be released in 2012 – three years from now.

In addition to being accused of the 13-year-old girl’s death, Kirkland also is a suspect in the death of two others, a woman and a teenaged girl, both of whom were burned and killed.

Deters’ letter came after his office agreed to a plea bargain that resulted in Kirkland pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and aggravated arson in 1987. He originally had been charged with murder, which carried a maximum prison sentence of life.

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